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Update.......Little Rock National Airport.


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After losing direct NYC service, by all indications it seems American Airlines mainline service is also no longer being offered (unless I'm overlooking something).  Of course, it also looks like they've also exited XNA.  I find this quite surprising given the reduced SWA Dallas connections, which I thought would only help AA.  Perhaps the drastic drop in fuel costs has reversed the economics of regional jets, which only make sense in high fuel cost environments.

 

It seems LIT is really taking it on the chin.  I really don't follow why boardings are down 5% this year after climbing 5% last year (while FSM and XNA both saw record increases).

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Not sure if we are totally missing out as I see at least one token MD80 flight to DFW when looking at a mid June schedule.  I think the larger driver here is the shift from the 50 seat RJ's like the CRJ 200's and ERJ 145's to the larger RJ's such as the CRJ 900 and Embraer 175's.  Looking again at mid June, the bulk of LR flights shift to CRJ 700's and 900's acquired from the US Airways merger.  With AA bringing a ton of CR9's and ER175's on property later this year, much of the flow to/from short haul locations to the major hubs will be seeing this shift.  

 

As a former frequent traveler between LIT and IAH, I expect United to start dropping frequencies to LIT in favor of the larger RJ's once Skywest/Express Jet start taking delivery of their first batch of ER175's later this year.  While I know I'm in the minority, I'm really going to miss the ERJ 145's on United and AA between LIT and IAH, DFW, and ORD.  One of the best rides for the business traveler flying solo out there.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I heard that LIT will be announcing a new non-stop to a destination not currently being served by non-stop service from LIT. Anybody else heard this? What's the location?

UPDATE: It's Allegiant. Nonstop service to Los Angeles starts this summer. Arkansas Times Blog has the info.

Edited by Arkanzin
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I heard that LIT will be announcing a new non-stop to a destination not currently being served by non-stop service from LIT. Anybody else heard this? What's the location?

UPDATE: It's Allegiant. Nonstop service to Los Angeles starts this summer. Arkansas Times Blog has the info.

 

Twice weekly...don't overwhelm us.  Sheesh.  I guess I'm not surprised.  Allegiant doesn't fly daily on ANY of their routes.  They're definitely set up for casual vacationers.

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I agree!  Some good news is better than bad news.  I hope the airport can continue to find new routes.  I did notice they have a sign up at the airport indicating $20.6 million in terminal renovations coming by fall 2016, I think this is badly needed.  The terminal past the security checkpoint is very outdated.

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  • 3 months later...

The Arkansas Times is reporting that Southwest will once again fly between Little Rock and St. Louis starting in January. There will be two flights per day to and from St. Louis. It is also reporting that Southwest will discontinue the once per day flights to Chicago-Midway and Baltimore/Washington in 2016 because the flights were under capacity.

I don't mind losing the one flight to Midway because both American and United fly to O'Hare but losing the Baltimore/Washington flight leaves Little Rock without a direct connection to the DC area.

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The Arkansas Times is reporting that Southwest will once again fly between Little Rock and St. Louis starting in January. There will be two flights per day to and from St. Louis. It is also reporting that Southwest will discontinue the once per day flights to Chicago-Midway and Baltimore/Washington in 2016 because the flights were under capacity.

I don't mind losing the one flight to Midway because both American and United fly to O'Hare but losing the Baltimore/Washington flight leaves Little Rock without a direct connection to the DC area.

 

I had heard about St. Louis being reinstated (which is surprising), but at the cost of BWI and Chicago?!  Wow.  LIT is really in a tailspin for whatever reason on both service level and passenger count.  The sun-setting of the Wright Amendment appears to be taking its toll unfortunately.

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The Arkansas Times is reporting that Southwest will once again fly between Little Rock and St. Louis starting in January. There will be two flights per day to and from St. Louis. It is also reporting that Southwest will discontinue the once per day flights to Chicago-Midway and Baltimore/Washington in 2016 because the flights were under capacity.

I don't mind losing the one flight to Midway because both American and United fly to O'Hare but losing the Baltimore/Washington flight leaves Little Rock without a direct connection to the DC area.

  

I had heard about St. Louis being reinstated (which is surprising), but at the cost of BWI and Chicago?!  Wow.  LIT is really in a tailspin for whatever reason on both service level and passenger count.  The sun-setting of the Wright Amendment appears to be taking its toll unfortunately.

Is there not still the United flights to Reagan National in DC or were those canceled as well?
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Southwest pushing those that want to fly to the DC area via direct to Memphis or you can connect at STL same for Baltimore. Memphis

just approved a new desired direct flight list and an incentive package to get them. The list reads like a who's who of Southwest destinations along with some carrots for Allegiant and Frontier and possibly luring Spirit. I'm still a bit surprised that Southwest hasn't given Memphis a bunny hop route for St.Louis and New Oreans.

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I had heard about St. Louis being reinstated (which is surprising), but at the cost of BWI and Chicago?!  Wow.  LIT is really in a tailspin for whatever reason on both service level and passenger count.  The sun-setting of the Wright Amendment appears to be taking its toll unfortunately.

  

Southwest pushing those that want to fly to the DC area via direct to Memphis or you can connect at STL same for Baltimore. Memphis

just approved a new desired direct flight list and an incentive package to get them. The list reads like a who's who of Southwest destinations along with some carrots for Allegiant and Frontier and possibly luring Spirit. I'm still a bit surprised that Southwest hasn't given Memphis a bunny hop route for St.Louis and New Oreans.

Most of that tailspin has been from Memphis having Southwest now. No need for them to drive to Little Rock any more to use the airport. But some of that is local as well. I know the recession affected travel but I thought some of that would have started coming back by now, especially business travel.

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Most of that tailspin has been from Memphis having Southwest now. No need for them to drive to Little Rock any more to use the airport. But some of that is local as well. I know the recession affected travel but I thought some of that would have started coming back by now, especially business travel.

The southwest flight to Orlando I was on in Feb was nearly all Arkansan. From cheerleading squads from Jonesboro to families going to Mickeyland from Stuttgart. I was quite taken aback, in the old days that was connecting traffic for Delta thru Memphis or Atlanta via LR or DFW for American in addition to connecting via Southwest. Memphis had nonstop Delta to Orlando but paying for it was an issue. It was heaped to fly out of LR and connect in Memphis. Screwed up it was. Edited by TRB
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  • 1 month later...

New article in today's DemGaz about continued decline in traffic at Clinton National:  http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2015/aug/19/fliers-decline-at-lr-airport-20150819/

The decline is perplexing at best, given that the economy is clearly improving and population continues to climb in Central Arkansas.  There are clearly outside factors at play here, both a negative for Clinton National: first, the exertion of the Wright Amendment at Dallas Love Field (not requiring stops in adjacent states), and second, Memphis' loss of its "hub" status actually results in a more typical in-bound/out-bound airport with MUCH lower fares which make Clinton National much less competitive than before to that region of the state.  I think the demise of Alltel and the lackluster growth at both Windstream and Acxiom also play a factor here.

 

Unfortunate all the way around, but eventually traffic will climb with increased population.

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New article in today's DemGaz about continued decline in traffic at Clinton National:  http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2015/aug/19/fliers-decline-at-lr-airport-20150819/

The decline is perplexing at best, given that the economy is clearly improving and population continues to climb in Central Arkansas....I think the demise of Alltel and the lackluster growth at both Windstream and Acxiom also play a factor here.

I would be interested to see what the numbers look like for Adams Field FBO.  Perhaps there's an increase in private plane service versus conventional air travel at LIT that would make up a good portion of the decline.  I travel out of LIT more now than ever.  The decline is definitely confusing.

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Thanks for the article.  The decline is frustrating for the LR airport and Central Arkansas.  I love flying and I usually fly 6-8 times a year for business and pleasure and I would like to see new routes open but I know until demand grows that won't happen.  Between my wife and I we have flown out of the airport about 10 times this year, with another 4 or 5 trips to go; I would love to have more flexibility for leaving but that is just how it goes.  

Hopefully the trend starts to reverse itself and we get some new routes in the coming months/years.  I am glad that are going to renovate the main terminal soon, it is much needed.

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I wonder how other similar-sized airports have done since the Wright Amendment prohibition on DAL was removed.  Have other airports in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana noticed a decline in traffic?  Has the number of non-stop options from those similar-sized airports also dropped?  

What would be similar-sized airports?  ABQ, TUL, SHV?  I would think OKC and MSY would be larger airports and not good comparisons.  TUL is an international airport.  SHV is a regional airport.  

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I wonder how other similar-sized airports have done since the Wright Amendment prohibition on DAL was removed.  Have other airports in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana noticed a decline in traffic?  Has the number of non-stop options from those similar-sized airports also dropped?  

What would be similar-sized airports?  ABQ, TUL, SHV?  I would think OKC and MSY would be larger airports and not good comparisons.  TUL is an international airport.  SHV is a regional airport.  

You got me curious and I just did a quick look at some of those airports, I excluded MSY due to New Orleans just due to it's popularity (notoriety?) compared to the other cities.   

I was surprised to see that Albuquerque had alot more movement that I would have guessed, between TUL, OKC and ABQ, Little Rock has by far the least PAX movement.  I noted all 4 airports I looked at had a YTD decrease in PAX movement compared to 2014 and the couple of months of 2015 data I looked at saw a 5% decrease for OKC in SW movement for July and a 9% decrease for ABQ SW movement in June.  

Seems the Wright Amendment is affecting more than just LIT.  

Plane Movement

As Architect pointed out I left off the most important airport!  LIT has been added for comparison.

 

Edited by Gentileking
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I wonder how other similar-sized airports have done since the Wright Amendment prohibition on DAL was removed.  Have other airports in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana noticed a decline in traffic?  Has the number of non-stop options from those similar-sized airports also dropped?  

What would be similar-sized airports?  ABQ, TUL, SHV?  I would think OKC and MSY would be larger airports and not good comparisons.  TUL is an international airport.  SHV is a regional airport.  

FYI, the "name" of airports means NOTHING!  You can call it the Little Rock Intergalactic Universe Airport for all that anyone cares (i.e. the fact that Tulsa's is named "International" and OKC is "World" is just fanfare).  Shreveport is not on the same playing field with the others...its traffic is MUCH smaller than all of the others, much less than even XNA.  It is not a good comparison.

You got me curious and I just did a quick look at some of those airports, I excluded MSY due to New Orleans just due to it's popularity (notoriety?) compared to the other cities.   

I was surprised to see that Albuquerque had alot more movement that I would have guessed, between TUL, OKC and ABQ, Little Rock has by far the least PAX movement.  I noted all 4 airports I looked at had a YTD decrease in PAX movement compared to 2014 and the couple of months of 2015 data I looked at saw a 5% decrease for OKC in SW movement for July and a 9% decrease for ABQ SW movement in June.  

Seems the Wright Amendment is affecting more than just LIT.  

Plane Movement

 

I didn't see LIT on your spreadsheet to compare?!  As I noted, Shreveport is not in the same league.  As I recall and you've confirmed, TUL is about 20-25% more traffic than LIT (which is about the difference in MSA size).  What's surprising is that OKC has grown so much...it didn't use to be much more than TUL.  ABQ is an outlier...it's ALWAYS been a medium to large "hub" (by FAA standards) and has always outplayed its size and I presume that's because it is SO remote from anywhere that a lot of people have to fly to really get anywhere (that's also my opinion about why Omaha is also quite sizable in traffic, even though its MSA isn't much larger than LIT).

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